


Tumble and Fall

by AgentCK8



Category: Leverage, NCIS: Los Angeles
Genre: Dysfunctional Relationships, Gen, Parker Being Parker
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2015-11-03
Packaged: 2018-04-16 09:52:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4620870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentCK8/pseuds/AgentCK8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Approximately 3 years after the end of Leverage.  Hardison and Parker are no longer dating.  After an emotional day, Eliot and Parker share bad movies and good tequila.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first attempt at writing for the Leverage fandom. It's rated teen and up for bad language. The rating and tags may change as the story progresses. NCIS LA does not actually appear in the prologue, but will show up later. This story begins 3 or so years after the end of Leverage, and in an AU of NCIS LA. More character and relationship tags will be added as they appear in the story.

Prologue

 

Eliot looked around the kitchen with a sense of deep satisfaction that only seemed to come at the end of a long day of creating delicious dishes from choice ingredients. The menu at the brew pub had been in need of a little freshening to go along with the new beers that Hardison had created. Eliot would never admit it to him, but he was getting quite good at brewing up new tastes. Of course, there was still the occasional wild experiment. Eliot still shuddered when he recalled the broccoli pilsner fiasco, or the gummi frog shandy catastrophe. He turned back to his kitchen with pride. And it was his kitchen. 

Soon after Nate and Sophie's wedding, about 2 years ago now, Hardison had surprised Eliot and Parker by making them all equal partners in the brew pub. Hardison still owned the building, but there were now three apartments along with a good sized gym in the upper floors, and indoor parking beside the loading dock for Lucille and the trio's other vehicles. When Eliot questioned his generosity, Hardison went off into some geek spiral about Tony Stark, Stark Tower and The Avengers. Eliot smirked at the memory. Hardison may have bulked up during his years with Leverage, and could even throw a decent punch now, but he had a long way to go before he could compare himself to Iron Man.

His thoughts were interrupted by a petite brunette walking into the kitchen. “Hey, Eliot.”

“Hey, Amy. What's up?”

“You need to get out to the bar.” She seemed worried.

“Somebody getting rowdy?” That sort of thing happened a lot less here than it had in Boston, but even the mellow Portlanders could get riled up if they were drunk enough.

“Not yet, but Parker's out there drinking.”

Now Eliot was confused. “Um, Parker's a grown woman. She's allowed to drink if she wants to.”

Amy confined herself to a small eye roll. “Yeah, but usually she has a beer or two and she's fine. Tonight she's drinking straight tequila, and there's some guy out there coming on to her. I'm afraid she's going to do something she'll regret later, but I'm not sure if she's gonna sleep with him or stab him.”

Eliot nodded. “It's always a toss-up between those two with that girl.” He turned to the other cooks who seemed to have the after dinner rush well in hand. “Manny! You guys got this?”

The other man never turned away from the grill, but he raised a spatula in acknowledgment. “Yes, chef. We're good for the night.”

As he took off his apron, Eliot wondered what had gotten into Parker tonight. She usually didn't like the loss of control she felt from drinking too much. He'd only seen her actually drunk twice; once after one of her first jobs as mastermind went heart-stoppingly wrong, and again when Hardison went on his first date after their whatever they wanted to call it. Eliot called it a breakup, but Parker said that meant that people were mad at each other. She said that they just weren't dating anymore. That had happened almost a year ago, so he didn't think that would be bothering her tonight. Then again, this is Parker he was talking about. He'd never claim to know exactly how her mind worked.

As he crossed the crowded pub toward the bar, he could see Parker, and the guy Amy had told him about. Judging from what he could see of Parker's reaction to him, Eliot would bet that the results of this evening at the bar was leaning more towards a trip to the ER for the leering jerk than anything else. This bastard was sitting there, smiling at Parker while he laid on the charm with a trowel. As he got closer, Eliot could hear a southern accent flavoring the asshole's words as he tried to flirt with Parker. For some reason, that just made Eliot angry. 

Just as he was walking up to them, the patron sitting on the stool on the other side of Parker got up to leave. Eliot gave them a small smile and sat down. He slid an arm over the back of Parker's bar stool and leaned in toward her. “Hey, darlin'. You started without me.”

Parker turned toward him, confused. “What?”

That provided enough cover for Eliot to slide the bar knife out of her hand. Yup, definitely a stabby kind of night. He picked up her drink and downed it. “You started drinking without me.” 

Eliot looked across her at the son of a bitch on the other side as the bartender refilled Parker's glass and set a fresh one in front of him while he surreptitiously passed the knife back to him. “Is this guy bothering you?”

Parker was, thank goodness, still sober enough to play along. “No, it's okay. He's fine.” 

Eliot was still aggravated enough to kill the drink in one shot. Something about that guy just got to him. Parker watched him. She seemed to be considering something, then said, “It's crowded in here tonight. Let's just go to my place. We can drink there.”

Eliot nodded slightly. “Sure, if that's what you want.”

He got up and walked around the bar to grab a bottle of Patron and had a quiet conversation with the bartender, who would be keeping a close eye on Parker's admirer.

He caught up to Parker in the back room of the pub before he thought of something.

“Hey, Parker, have you eaten tonight?”

She shook her head. 

“Okay, you go on up to your place, and I'll grab something from the kitchen. I'll be right behind you.”

“Fine, but the bottle goes with me.” She was somehow holding it now. He'd never even seen her move, or felt it leave his hands, but after almost eight years, he was kind of getting used to that sort of thing. 

Ten minutes later, they were sitting on the couch in Parker's apartment. Eliot was holding the tequila hostage until Parker finished her plate of grilled pork chop with braised new potatoes. He set a glass of water in front of her instead. She scowled at him and he smirked. “Drink that with your dinner. Save the Patron for after. Otherwise, you're not going to get drunk, you'll just get sick. I assume drunk is what you're shooting for here.”

She shrugged, and finished off her dinner. She showed her clean plate to him. 

“May I please have the damn tequila now?” she asked in a saccharine sweet tone.

He set a juice glass down for each of them, and half filled it. “Only if you talk to me. What's wrong, darlin?”

She looked at him and sighed. He was being nice. She liked Eliot when he was all growly and grumpy, but she could never resist when he was nice, with his voice and eyes both soft. Damn, she was going to have to talk to him. “It's Archie. I got a call from a mutual friend this morning. He had a stroke.”

She tried to go on, but her throat was all clogged with the tears she'd refused to shed all day.

“Oh, honey. I'm so sorry.” Eliot took her hand and held it snugly in his. 

A couple of sips of tequila burned through the tears enough for her to talk. “He's going to be okay, but he'll have to go through a lot of physical therapy and stuff.”

Eliot gave her a small smile. “But that's good news, right? That he's gonna be okay?”

Parker nodded and took another sip. “Yeah, it's just...it's his daughters. His real daughters,” she sneered.

“They wouldn't let me see him. Eliot, they had me banned from seeing Archie. I mean, I still got in there. Those air ducts at the hospital are small, but I still got in there to see him. It's just, Archie's as close to family as I have, but he's not. His real family can try to keep me from seeing him. It just hurt that they could do that and I had no say in it.”

Eliot squeezed her hand just a little tighter. He knew that no hospital security was going to keep Parker from going where ever she wanted, but it was the principle of the thing. Personally, he thought that Archie had never treated her as well as she deserved, but she loved the old thief, and he could relate to the feeling of being the odd man out. “Hey, Parker. Hardison and I are your family too. So are Nate and Sophie for that matter.”

Those damned tears had finally escaped. “I thought about that. But then I thought that Hardison has his Nana, and you have your family back in Oklahoma, and Nate and Sophie have each other now. What if something happened to you and your family wouldn't let me see you? What if they didn't like me just like Archie's family? What if Hardison's Nana didn't like me? Nate and Sophie might decide they didn't need me anymore, or they might not like me anymore.”

By now, Parker was sobbing, and Eliot had pulled her into his arms. He understood that Parker was hurt and feeling rejected, just as she did anytime she had to deal with Archie's family, but there was no way anyone from the Leverage crew, past or present, would reject her like that. If they did, they'd answer to him.

“Shh. It's okay, sweetheart. Nobody is keeping you from me or Hardison. As far as Nate and Sophie? Now you're just being silly. They will never not like you. They love you, sweetheart. So do Hardison and I.”

Parker raised her head and sniffled. “But what about your family?”

Eliot shook his head. “My family don't even know where I am. I burned those bridges a long time ago. My sister has an email to be used for emergencies only. You'll be there long before they would ever know anything was wrong. If they give you any trouble, you can throw them out of my room.”

Another sniffle. “Really?”

He smiled softly. “I promise.”

Parker stared at him for a moment, searching his eyes for something; he couldn't figure out what. Apparently she found what she was looking for. She sat back abruptly and blinked a few times. “I gotta wash my face.”

Eliot shrugged off the sudden change of mood. She might have gotten better at acting like a regular human, but she was still Parker at heart, and every now and then he'd get a glimpse of the awkward girl she'd been when they'd met. Eliot gathered up the dinner dishes and took them to the small kitchen. Looking around at the mostly unused appliances, he decided that Parker could have done just as well with just a refrigerator and maybe a vending machine. He was back on the couch, re-corking the tequila when she came back out, clean faced and wearing yoga pants and a loose t shirt that looked familiar. Eliot vaguely remembered seeing one just like it in his dresser a few days ago. 

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“Putting this up? You seemed like you felt better. I figured you didn't need it anymore tonight.”

“Oh, no. I said I was getting drunk tonight, and drunk I will get.” She sat back down beside him, bumping shoulders with him lightly. “I do feel better, though. Thanks for that.”

He smiled. “Anytime, darlin'.” She wasn't drunk yet? He'd started feeling the effects of the alcohol several drinks ago.

“So, you wanna see if there's a crappy movie on we can make fun of?” She wriggled her eyebrows at him in a way that always made him want to laugh.

“Sure, darlin'. Sounds good.”

She grabbed the remote while he poured another round. He held onto his glass while he settled into the corner of the couch. 

Once the Syfy network was located Parker grabbed her own glass and snuggled into his side. Eliot sighed softly and wrapped his arm around her shoulders before he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

One hour and most of the rest of the bottle later, Eliot had experienced all of the Sharknado trilogy that he ever wanted to see. “Seriously? They made three of these things?”

“Apparently.” Parker sounded as bewildered as he felt. Then she giggled. “Maybe we're partaking in the wrong substances to enjoy it.”

“Heh. I think you're right.” Parker sat up to grab the remote while he drained the last of the bottle into their glasses. 

“I'm going to see what else is on.” She began scrolling through the channels. “Oh.”

Eliot glanced up and froze. Shit. Porn. He was going to need at least another bottle of tequila if he was going to watch porn with Parker. “Uh, why don't we watch something else?”

Instead of changing the channel, she turned to face him. “Eliot? Do you ever wonder what it would have been like if we'd gotten together instead of me and Hardison?”

Every damned day. He'd bitten the words back so hard that his jaw was clenched. He had to think for a moment to come up with something he could say out loud. “Well, you know, I kinda have this rule...”

Parker nodded. “You don't shit where you eat. Yeah, you told Hardison about it years ago. But do you ever wonder?”

He shrugged one shoulder. One of his other rules was that he tried his best not to lie to Parker. “Yeah.”

“Me, too. And I know what you're thinking, but I'm not that drunk. But I am horny. So, what do you say, cowboy? Two mostly sober adults? One show only, no encores?”

He had to grin as he recognized his words from their very first job together. “You're sure about this?”

Her agreement was implied by the fact that her top had just sailed across the room.

'Oh what the hell', he thought as he took her hand and followed her to the bedroom. 'I haven't completely fucked up my life in a long time.'

 

...To Be Continued...


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

 

Eliot spent the next six months waiting for his life to implode. Surprisingly, at least to him, life just continued on as smoothly as it ever did for the crew of Leverage, International. He and Parker spent more time together, usually at least two nights a week, with no observable change to their daytime relationship. Their nighttime one, though, was very different. For example, although Parker had assured him that she did not consider them to be exclusive, he found he no longer had any desire to pickup anonymous women for sex. He realized after a while that this was the longest time he'd spent being with just one woman since Aimee, but he refused to place any significance on that fact. It was just convenient, that's all. At least, that's what he told himself. And he'd believed it too. Until tonight. 

Their current job required Parker and Hardison to infiltrate a fund raising party given by their mark. Hardison, already dressed in his tux, was busy setting up his precious laptops to a configuration that he trusted even Eliot couldn't mess up. “Okay, so you should be good for surveillance with this. We shouldn't have any trouble, just a simple meet and greet, but just in case, I've got this one loaded with the blueprints of the house, and I've got the ear buds keyed into this one.”

“Dammit, Hardison, I have done this before, ya know.” Eliot was about to continue his rant when he sensed someone behind him. He turned to see Parker walking up, and felt like he'd been bashed over the head with a crowbar. The pale gold satin dress looked like it had been made just for her, the color playing off her creamy skin like candle light. It reminded him of the old movies his momma had loved, the ones with Myrna Loy. The dress wasn't low-cut at the neck, but it seemed the whole sleeveless dress hung from a jeweled band around her neck, showcasing strong toned shoulders, and a slit on the side rose high on her thigh, showing a lot of long, shapely leg.

Parker looked up from the clutch handbag she'd been fussing with to see Eliot gazing at her with a dumb struck expression. “What? Do I have something on my face?” 

She was checking to make sure that she hadn't spilled anything on her dress when Eliot started stumbling over himself. “No, Parker. It's just...sweetheart, you just look...”

Her face fell. “It's the dress, isn't it. I wasn't sure about this one, but Amy said...now I don't have time to get something else. God, I miss Sophie,” she huffed.

What the hell was wrong with him? He was acting like a thirteen year old, stammering and stuttering. Next, he bet, his voice would start to crack, and wouldn't Hardison have a field day with that. Eliot determinedly shook off his daze and walked toward Parker, a warm smile on his face. “No, darlin. There's nothing wrong with that dress, or you. You just look...” He turned to Hardison for a moment, at a loss for words. As usual on anything not tech related, Hardison was of no help. “You look beautiful, Parker.”

Parker's smile lit up her face, and the entire room as she reached up to check her hair, all pinned up with a few intentionally loose curls. “Really?” 

Of course, now Hardison spoke up, even if his attention was all on his monitors. “Really. You ready to go?”

Eliot turned back to him with a “are you kiddin' me?” glare. How was Hardison, who was supposedly in love with Parker at one point, not affected by the way she looked in this get up? He rolled his eyes as Hardison crossed to Parker and they prepared to leave. Parker turned to go and Eliot got his first look at the back of the dress. Or, where the back of the dress should have been. There wasn't one, just smooth creamy skin, almost down to the spot where just this morning, his lips had... Okay, his mind wasn't going there. Now was not the time, they were on a job. He was a professional. He could do this. Besides, Hardison's hand was brushing over that spot as he escorted Parker out the door.

Eliot sighed and seated himself in front of the laptops with a fresh cup of coffee, preparing for a long evening of babysitting the laptops, just in case his partners needed him, and not thinking about Parker in that dress. He stared at the coffee cup, willing it to turn into one of Nate's precious whisky bottles. 

But he wasn't jealous. This was Parker, after all. He couldn't be jealous because of Parker. Even if she was beautiful, and funny, and one of the best friends he'd ever had. The sex was pretty fantastic too. But it was Parker. He closed his eyes and dropped his chin to his chest. Shit. He was. He was jealous. Because of Parker. How in the name of hell had he gotten himself into this? 

He had just curled forward to bang his forehead against the tabletop in frustration when his cell phone rang. He scowled at the unrecognized number. “Hello?”

“Mr. Spencer, I presume?” The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Eliot couldn't place it.

“That depends on who's askin', lady.”

“Well, I realized it's been quite a long time, Mr. Spencer, but I really hoped you'd recognize my voice. Of course, if you had, you'd realize that very few people have ever mistaken me for a lady.”

Eliot chuckled as the penny dropped and he recognized the voice. “Henrietta Lange, as I live and breathe. How's it going, Duchess? You're right, I should have recognized that very distinctive voice. Let me guess, you're not calling just to catch up on old times.”

“You are correct, as usual, Mr. Spencer. I'm afraid I need to call in that favor you owe me.”

Of course. Because life really needed to get more complicated right now. He sighed. “What do you need, Duchess?”

“I need you to help retrieve someone who is currently in South America. I believe you are familiar with him, Geraldo Mingo.”

Eliot snorted in frustration. “Shit. I thought he was dealt with already.”

“Apparently, when Damien Moreau's empire was dismantled, good work on that, by the way, some of his underlings escaped the net. Most of them are lying low, scattered across Europe and Asia, but this one decided to try to rebuild what he could. Tell me, Sargent, how is your Sranan?”

Eliot growled. Great. He was headed to Suriname. He still had occasional flashbacks to a hut there where he'd holed up for three weeks to recover from a mission gone bad. He'd been the only one of his team to walk out of that rain forest and he's sworn to himself that he'd never go back. Well, here was another promise he wouldn't get to keep. “It's not as good as my Dutch,” he growled, “and I ain't no sergeant no more.”

“I suppose Dutch will do,” Hetty answered thoughtfully, ignoring the last part of his statement. “We are in a bit of a time crunch on this, as Mingo has begun obtaining arms through his connections in Suriname and funneling them to terrorist groups here.”

“In the US.?” Eliot swore under his breath this time, but Hetty heard and agreed with his assessment. 

“Quite. We need you here as soon as possible, so that you can meet the rest of your team before you leave.”

“The job I'm working on now should be wrapped up in two or three days. Will the weekend be soon enough? And who's on this team? Anyone I know? And where the hell is here, Duchess?”

“Language, Mr. Spencer. Saturday will work out perfectly, as the others are also finishing up their assignments. As far as the team, one of my own team is going, Agent Sam Hanna, a former Seal. There will also be two other Seals, and I believe you already know the last member of the team, Captain Shelbourne?”

“Shelley's going? Now it's a party.”

“Yes, well, I suppose anything's possible. As far as here, I'll arrange for your transport from Portland to here. I'll send the details to your phone as soon as I get them. By the way, tell your Mr. Hardison not to try to find us. I would not be amused.”

Eliot chuckled. “Well, I'll tell him, but I can't guarantee that he won't take that as a challenge. I'll see you soon, Duchess.”

He disconnected the call as he noticed Hardison's and Parker's arrival at the party on the laptop tracking their ear buds. Back to his day job.

~*~

Three hours later, Hardison and Parker returned to the office, bickering. 

“Well, if you didn't want to dance with him, why didn't you just say so?” Hardison asked as he pulled his bow tie loose and unfastened the top buttons on his tuxedo shirt.

“Because then he would have gotten suspicious, Hardison. I had to dance with the old fart and his creepy wandering hands.” Parker shuddered at the memory. 

Eliot only realized his hands had clenched into tight fists when he noticed Parker staring at them, and he started to relax them, reminding himself that if she had objected too much, Parker was perfectly capable of defending herself without his help. Maybe some time apart was what he needed to get himself back under control.

~*~*~*~

All too soon it was Saturday morning. Eliot double checked the worn duffle bag before zipping it up and leaving it by the front door. He headed back to the bedroom where Parker was still snuggled under the blankets. He smiled softly as he eased down to sit on the edge of the bed beside her. She was curled up on her side with her arms wrapped around his pillow, which he had a feeling was substituting for her worn stuffed bunny. He gently brushed her hair back from her face with his fingers before pressing a kiss to her forehead. 

She blinked a couple of times to focus before she looked up at him. “Is it time for you to leave already?”

“Yeah, I'm afraid so.” He kissed her lips this time. “You behave yourself while I'm gone, you hear me? I don't want to come back to find out that we have to burn the brew pub and find another city. I like it here.”

Parker raised up on her knees to face him and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I'll promise you that, if you'll promise me that you'll come back safe and sound. I'm serious, Eliot. I never used to worry about other people, but now, I'm scared. I'm scared you won't come home.”

Eliot ran his hands up and down her back, memorizing the feel of her against him. “I promise, Parker, if there is any way possible, I'll come home to you. Even if I have to crawl to do it.”

Parker nodded, her face nuzzled down in his neck. A knock at the door interrupted whatever she'd been about to say. He framed her face in his hands before gazing into her eyes, trying to convey everything he couldn't put into words. He pressed his lips to hers one final time before hurrying to the front door and his ride to the helicopter that would take him to Los Angeles to meet up with the rest of his team for this mission.

TBC


End file.
